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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22944397">pallid</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballerinaroy/pseuds/ballerinaroy'>ballerinaroy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Kidnapping, Psychological, Psychological Torture, Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:09:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,222</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22944397</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballerinaroy/pseuds/ballerinaroy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He was alone, in a nauseatingly uniform room designed just for him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>background Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>pallid</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Of all the bloody things.</p><p>It’d been an easy assignment, and Merlin knew he deserved one following the nine weeks he’d spent undercover in bloody Indonesia. He’d been assigned a shift watching the newly reopened Borgin and Burks in Knocturn Alley. He arrived at 8am each day and left at 2pm. It was easy, so easy that he’d grown complicit and hadn’t even turned when he thought he heard a noise in the alley behind him.</p><p>His chest ached from where he’d been hit and he gripped at it now, groaning. He knew at once he’d been moved because the grey light that barely illuminated the dirty cobblestone street had been replaced with a white light that blinded him as he eased his eyes open.</p><p>It was white, so much so that it was impossible to notice anything else.</p><p>Ron looked down at his freckled hands and found that even his clothes had even been charmed to that blinding white. He felt his person for a wand, already knowing that it had been taken from him.</p><p>He began feeling around for a wall, for an ending. He walked only two paces before finding it and felt along the edge for a seam, the outline of a door, but couldn’t find one.</p><p>The corners were rounded, making it hard to determine where the walls began or ended. By his best estimation the room was square, perhaps the size of his childhood bedroom, but it was hard to determine with the uniformity of the room, the blinding white. So bright, so aggressive that even when he tried to close his eyes it was still there.</p><p>But even as he combed each and every inch of the room he knew the task was fruitless. There was no possible way, the room was too perfectly designed to have an opening. Still-</p><p>“<em>Hello</em>?” he tried but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. “<em>Hello</em>!” again, to the same effect.</p><p>Ron felt for his mouth to make sure it was still there, but the answer was almost immediate. Not only had he been taken, but his voice had been taken from him.</p><p>He was alone, in a nauseatingly uniform room designed just for him.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Being upset, he decided, was not going to help him. Instead, he had to focus on the facts.</p><p>One. Whoever had captured him wanted him alive.</p><p>He hadn’t been thrown in here at random. Too much care had been put into crafting the room, designed for him and to drive him mad. The stark white, the light that wouldn’t shut off, his clothes charmed to the exact shade, down even to the plate of food—bland white rice on a white plate. Even the clear glass of water, which he sat furthest away from, had been so uniform that he’d nearly tripped over it during his first pass of the room.</p><p>Two. The room didn’t have a physical exit.</p><p>The room had been designed with only one way in and out and that was magic. He’d tried picking at the wall to no avail, thrown his body against the barriers until it had ached. There was no give, no weak spot. To get him in his captor had to have apparated him in. Even portkeys lacked the accuracy necessary to land him precisely in the middle.</p><p>Three. They had a plan.</p><p>His fleeting fear that had been taken at random didn’t make much sense given all of the other factors. They hadn’t wanted an auror, they’d wanted <em>him</em>. But for what?</p><p>Information? As a hostage?</p><p>The thought of them using him to get at Harry or Hermione sent a shiver down his spine. But if they had taken him for that purpose they could have stuck him in any old hole. They needn’t have gone through all this trouble. No, the blindingly white room was sophisticated, purposeful. They wanted something and something out of him.</p><p>Now he only had to wait and figure out what.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The waiting in its self might have been enough to get him to spill the beans. His inspection of the room must’ve taken hours and hours still had passed with no change to his environment. The rice and water, which he’d been initially able to resist without a second thought, began calling to him and there wasn’t enough room to turn to resist temptation.</p><p>And then came the issue of nature calling. He looked fruitlessly around the room, trying to think of a way to relieve himself that wasn’t completely demoralizing but to no avail. And then, just as he was about to take off his shirt in hopes of getting as little as possible on himself, a bucket appeared.</p><p>Ron scrambled away from the object in surprise and as he did its whiteness got lost in the landscape of the room.</p><p>Was he being watched? Or had it just been sent on a schedule? Either way, he wasn’t going to refuse the gift like he was the food and hurried to utilize the small pail. And it was just in time too, for just as he finished, the bucket disappeared with the pop of a vanishing charm, taking away it’s contents with it.</p><p>Watched, he deducted, sliding back down one of the walls and resting his elbows on his knees. There was no other way that the time had been so perfect. Again he scanned the room for any indication of what exactly they were monitoring him with, but it was useless. The room remained as unrelenting in its secrets as ever and just as blinding.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t sleep. Or at least, he was pretty sure he couldn’t sleep. Sometimes he closed his eyes but even when he shielded his eyes with his arm or his shirt he was still overcome by the blinding light. Eventually, his thirst was overwhelming, his only thought not on escape but on his own impossible dry mouth and the pounding headache that came with it. And always within his arm’s reach, taunting him, was the cure.</p><p>They wouldn’t poison him, not after they’d gone through all the trouble to get him here. He’d be useless to them dead. Only, he wasn’t quite sure what the use was anyway.</p><p>Finally, unable to think of anything else, he reached for the clear cup of water, nearly knocking it over with his trembling hands. It took a great deal of restraint not to drain the glass in one gulp, and the small amount that he did consume was worthless to quench his thirst.</p><p>There was a faint taste, perhaps just of the tap that it’d been taken from, but when an undetermined amount of time passed to no effect, he could think of no reason not to finish the glass, to ease the dehydrated ache in his throat. When he set the drained glass down, it refilled on its own and there was seemingly no consequence to his action.</p><p>Ron settled back against the curved wall, satiated, if only for a moment and let out a long breath of relief. Besides relieving his immediate pain, the water had the added effect of a renewed burst of energy and for the dozenth or perhaps hundredth time Ron got to his feet and began searching the room, running his hands up and down the walls, stretching as far up as he could but the room revealed no new secrets.</p><p>When he finished, he saw no reason not to drink again and was rewarded once more with a burst of energy witch which he stretched his body, mimicking some of the yoga moves that Hermione had become fond of after she and her mother had taken a class offered at a resort the Grangers had taken to on holiday.</p><p>Ron smiled at the memory of his wife stretched out on the beach, demonstrating what they’d learned and providing several pamphlets on the benefits of the exercise. He’d avoided thinking about her, but now that he was it was hard to stop.</p><p>The excitement in her voice whenever she discovered something new, the color in her cheeks whenever he openly flirted with her, the feeling of her hand slipping into his as they walked down the street, the warmth of her body sleeping next to his. His ring had been removed before he’d woken and he flexed his fingers, searching for it even though he knew it was gone.</p><p>By now, Hermione would have noticed his absence and he hated to think about how worried she must be. The notion that she’d never stop looking was comforting, but he feared she’d run herself ragged before he was found.</p><p><em>If</em> he was found.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, he’d try shouting, just to see, but his voice hadn’t been returned to him and it just left his throat to ache with no relief from the act.</p><p>When he tried to make noise, just to prove to himself that his ears still worked, the room fought against him. Stomping against the floors had no effort, nor throwing the plate or glass at the wall. The only way he was able to make a sound at all was skin against skin, so from time to time, Ron found himself slapping himself to prove that he was real. That it still stung, that this wasn’t all a horrible hallucination in his own mind.</p><p>He wasn’t sleeping. His whole face felt swollen, but even when he closed his eyes sleep felt far away. In time he began to suspect that the water, or even the food, had something more to it. That the faint taste of something in the otherwise pristine water was the hint of a potion, something to keep him awake.</p><p>Without sleep, it was impossible to measure how long had passed. In the relentlessly bright room, free from noise or smell. The walls making it seem endless though he could only stretch portions of his body at a time and never all at once.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“<em>What do you want!</em>” he tried again and again to shout but without even the satisfaction of having yelled. “<em>What do you want from me?</em>”</p><p>He would give it if only for some company some sign that this was all real, that he was.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Ron had never been one to be able to go long without food, but he estimated it’d been several days before he finally had to give in. The rice was dry for having sat out for so long, but its crunch was the closest thing to a flavor that the dish had to offer. Unlike the water, the plate didn’t automatically refill when he finished stuffing every last grain into his mouth and he wondered if he shouldn’t’ve parceled it out. If they’d fed him once, surely they would feed him again.</p><p>The regularity of the waste bucket assured him that he was being monitored and sure enough when enough time passed a fresh plate of food appeared in the same spot as before. He didn’t bother with trying to remain stoic, he knew he’d need his energy to survive this.</p><p>But by the fifth or sixth time he ate the dish, Ron began to suspect that the color wasn’t the only use the rice had as a means of torture. Even when freshly prepared he could feel the texture of each grain as it slid down his throat, driving him mad to the point of not wanting to eat it. But he had to eat, had to stay alive.</p><p><em>Had</em> to get back to them.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>And then, something miraculous happened. He’d been trying to rest, laying with his feet propped up against the wall, lost in a fantasy of the dinner he and Hermione had planned when out of the corner of his eye, something moved.</p><p>He scrambled to sit up, blinking rapidly.</p><p>Dressed in the same stark white clothes, her hair in a neat plait was—Hermione.</p><p>She smiled widely at him, meeting his eyes.</p><p>Neither of them moved for several minutes but finally, she reached out a hand, tears in her eyes and beckoned him over.</p><p>She’d come. He’d known she wouldn’t give up, that one day she would come for him and here she was…the small smile on her face, the longing in her eyes. She’d come to rescue him…to take him away.</p><p>He gave her a crooked grin, jumping to his feet and reached out, striding over to where she stood, eyes locked on the perfect face that he’d envisioned so many time she never quite got right and-</p><p>He crashed into the wall headfirst and stumbled backward.</p><p>Ron clutched at his aching head, blinking the place she’d been and found no trace of her. His breath quickened, tears in his eyes and-</p><p>Someone was sniggering at him. Ron whipped around to where he thought the disembodied voice might be and saw, just for a second, the outline of a disillusioned form. It was hard to make out in the whiteness of the room, but he was positive. Without thinking he, for a second time, lunged at the spot but whomever it was moved too quick and the sharp crack of disapparition echoed around in his brain.</p><p>The pain of hitting the wall headfirst for a second time didn’t even register as Ron fell back to the floor, trying to process what he’d seen.</p><p>Hermione might have just been a figment of his imagination, but the laughter hadn’t been. Not only was there someone watching him, but they had been here, in the same room. If only he’d been a second faster, could have latched onto the tail of their cloak. They were his ticket out of here, he only had to play his cards right.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>But whoever it was kept their distance. The food came, the bucket appeared and vanished, but there was no indication that anyone, disillusioned or otherwise was there with him.</p><p>And then, a note appeared.</p><p>
  <em>What happened to Ena Essa? </em>
</p><p>He stared at the paper for a long time.</p><p>The case had been ages ago, one of their first. The details, which he’d once committed to memory felt so foreign now. It took perhaps a day to recall them all. The horrible magic she’d learned,</p><p>If this was what they’d wanted, they could have just asked. He would have gladly sat down and talked through what had happened, would have given almost anything to share the horrible sight of her body flayed by her own mistaken charm.</p><p>They’d taken him for this? For an accident that had happened so long ago? He’d had no control over her death, but had still carried it with him every day since.</p><p>He thought of nothing else in the hours that followed. <em>Ena Essa</em>. Twenty-five. Involved with a madman-tricked. Killed when she’d been made and the package intended to destroy Olivanders had exploded in her face. Ron had been on the case, had approached her thinking….well it hadn’t mattered what he’d thought.</p><p>He should have saved her.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After that, they didn’t stop coming.</p><p>
  <em>Elsa Gertrude </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Anon Nassar</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Benjamin Richards</em>
</p><p>Seemingly never-ending and then in a loop. Twenty-five deaths all on his cases. All people he could have saved—<em>should</em> have saved.</p><p>He was beginning to understand he belonged here. He’d never spent the time linking the cases together but here, laid out in a neat presentation it was all so clear what he deserved. He had known that in pursuit of justice he wouldn’t be able to save everyone. He’d justified it to himself by saying that the victims would have been hurt either way and with him there as a witness, he was able to prevent their deaths from being meaningless. But now…</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“<em>What do you want</em>?” Ron would ask from time to time, his voice still stolen from him. “<em>I’ll do it.</em>”</p><p>But never to a reply.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He stopped bothering to read the notes.</p><p>He stopped eating at all.</p><p>He didn’t deserve the rice, the water.</p><p>The people who deserved the sustenance were all dead and he….</p><p>It had taken this room to make him see the truth. He hadn’t saved anyone at all. He was the reason for their deaths.</p><p>He resigned himself to what he deserved. He resigned himself to joining his victims.</p><p>The notes came and vanished of their own accord. The water sat untouched.</p><p>He was going to waste away. He couldn’t save them, but he could do this.</p><p>Whomever his keeper was they came more frequently now. Ron could feel them, just on the edge of his vision. Sometimes they paced around him. Sometimes they crouched down beside him and studied his face. He stared back listlessly, with no motivation for attack, for escape.</p><p>His visions of Hermione and Harry were no longer kind, instead, they stared at him with the same intense hatred that he felt for himself. Never talking, never needing words to condemn him. They’d be better off without him, Ron knew that now. He’d always been worthless to them.</p><p>He was going to die and he was going to die here so he wouldn’t be a bother any longer. Not to them, not to anyone. Only his captor would have to handle his remains. Or perhaps he’d be left here to rot. What had once been his prison would be his final resting place. The thought was strangely comforting.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He could feel it calling him, the weighing of his soul. Like a vulture, his captor could feel it too, linger for longer and longer each day, willing him along.</p><p><em>“I’m trying,” </em>Ron wanted to say, but felt his energy would be wasted. He was so close.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Hermione had stopped visiting. But Harry almost never left. He stood, arms crossed in the furthest corner of the room, staring at him. Ron stared back, unable to speak, unable to make any noise at all. His form, which had always been dressed in the blinding white was slowly gaining color, first the slightest hint of grey, and darker and darker still. He almost never left, silently staring at Ron, waiting.</p><p>He knew what Harry was here for. At seventeen he’d been the master of death and now he was Death’s accomplice. When his body gave in, Harry would be there to judge him, to deliver his soul to where it belonged. To another room, just as empty and devoid of sensation.</p><p>Somewhere not living, but not so foreign either.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>On the day he was positive would be his last, his captor spent a full hour beside him, disillusioned and waiting impatiently. When he was finally called away, he was replaced with a different kind of visitor entirely.</p><p>From nowhere appeared Harry in a dark cloak that covered his whole body. “I thought he’d never leave.”</p><p>Harry’s voice was far too loud and his clothes far too intense. Ron closed his eyes against them, finding comfort in the blinding witness.</p><p>“Ron?” Harry breathed. “Ron?”</p><p>And then, he did something that no hallucination had ever done before and placed a hand on top of Ron’s. The sensation over overwhelming and Ron made to snatch his hand away but found himself too weak.</p><p>“Hang on,” Harrys said louder, throwing something over them both.</p><p>And then, there was a terrible sensation of life being squeezed from him as Ron welcomed his death.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Been getting dialogue-heavy lately and I wrote this as an exercise in the other extreme. </p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://ballerinaroy.tumblr.com/">Follow me on Tumblr. </a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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